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Gluaiseacht's Submission on Climate Change Leadership to the Peoples Assembly.

Gluaiseacht(www.gluaiseacht.ie) is an environmental and social justice NGO, whose members have campaigned on Climate Change related issues for many years. We feel that we have some experiences that may be valuable to the Peoples Assembly as it addresses the question of "How the State can make Ireland a leader in tackling climate change?".

Gluaiseacht was founded after a trip by 35 Irish environmental activists and students to the Hague in the Netherlands in 2001 for the COP 6 Climate Summit. The group did not attend the summit but rather took part in actions with other international activists to press on the delegates the need to take climate change seriously. Over the following years in a campaign called, The Bet, Gluaiseacht organised workshops in primary and secondary schools to discuss climate change with pupils and ways to reduce their carbon footprint. In 2009 & 2010 Gluaiseacht members were part group that organised the two Climate Camps in Shannonbridge (focused on peat burning for power generation) and Victoria Bridge, Tyrone (focussed on further expansion of Ireland's road network). Among other projects, Gluaiseacht members have also been part of the Rossport Solidarity Camp and Shell to Sea campaigns in efforts to stop Shell building an inland Gas refinery to bring Corrib Gas onshore. Gluaiseacht members have also been part of the Plane Mad group which campaigned against further expansion of Ireland's aviation industry primarily from a climate change mitigation point of view. Other members work directly with mitigating and adapting to climate change through their personal and professional lives.

Recommendations

Based on these experiences Gluaiseacht would recommend the following measures to help Ireland lead the way in addressing human induced Climate Change.